


interlude.

by m1masr00m



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Blood and Gore, Depression, Emetophobia, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Injury Recovery, Nightmares, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Self-Hatred, Violence, idk fam this is not going to be a happy fic, the suffering lessens after a few chapters and that's p much all i can say
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-13 00:24:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9097381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m1masr00m/pseuds/m1masr00m
Summary: Between the despair of the past and the hope of the future exists Mitarai Ryota, forced to live with the carnage and the bloodshed he's set in motion.[Post-Zetsubou hen, pre-Mirai hen]





	1. Chapter 1

He was just…

animating.

The weight of his pen against the flat plain of his tablet, feeling the small vibrations inside his palm. Tap. Tap, tap.

That line is all wrong. Get rid of it; it’s all wrong. He wants to scrap this whole damn sequence and start over. He wants to scrap this whole damn project and start over.

His foot catches. His ragdoll body slams against the bone-shattering stone cobbles, freezing rain soaking through his blazer to his shirt to his bare skin. He’s shaking, violently. He can’t move. _Why can’t you move?!_

Undo that. Let’s try it again.

Under his fingers is a hard flat surface. He feels it moving under his skin. Or is it him who is moving? A warm energy radiates from his overworked monitors, but he’s cold and wet and sinking into the mud.

Humming.

‘That humming is going to drive me to insanity. Don’t they produce quieter machines nowadays?’

It’s Sagishi. Sagishi’s here.

_Thank God._

_They’re here. Sagishi’s here, they’re here with you. They care about you. You care about Sagishi._

For a second he is able to locate himself, to sew his body onto the disparate sensations that continue to strike him and then fade away, strike, fade away, one after the other.

‘If there was a way to g-get them to shut up I’d know about it, trust me.’ His voice is so nervous in his ears, but carefree. Happy. _Happy for once_. But somehow distant, as if Ryota Mitarai is speaking on the other side of a wall. _But_ _you’re Ryota Mitarai._

‘Well, it’s alright, I suppose. That’s gonna redefine the genre.’

He shudders and doesn’t understand why. Suddenly he feels incredibly sick.

(‘That’s gonna redefine the genre! Now that I’ve laid eyes on your magnum opus no other animation will ever do it for me again!’)

They meant the anime, right? They had to. His anime is going to redefine the genre. His anime is going to bring about a better world.

His techniques will bring about a better world.

 _Using them for the sake of despair…it’s… **t-terrible**._ His own nails piece the back of his skull. He’s started to sob. Sob into his knees. He can’t breathe. He can feel his lungs throbbing and burning in the back of his throat, can taste metal slicing into his tongue. His body coils tighter and tighter. _This can’t be happening._

‘You really think it could? You think it could make the world a b-better place?’

He hears no reply from the other side of the room.

He’s gazing into the blinding white of his monitor once more. Tap, tap. Undo that.

Sagishi? Are you still there?

_Don’t leave me Sagishi. I need you Sagishi, don’t leave, please-_

 ‘M-m-my life was in danger. I-I was being held hostage!’

Sagishi isn’t there. He knows that somehow. Without turning around.

Something’s there.

He’s soaked through. He can’t tell whether the water droplets running over the flesh on his cheeks are rain or tears. His bones feel like they could burst through his paper skin; the delicate bones in his hands as he grips at sopping hair tighter and tighter. His spine and shoulder blades pressing against the heavy fabric of his uniform, forcing themselves upward, outward. Cracking. Splitting his shell. He’s a monster. He’s a disgusting verminous creature.

The presence behind him is closing the gap. Is approaching.

‘You haven’t been responsible for your actions since we met! You could run off this campus with your tail between your legs and no one would blame you in the least!’

_Who’s there?! Go away!_

_Leave me alone!_

The voice fades in and out. He lurches forward into a run but doesn’t move, remains plastered to his chair. He’s going to be sick. He’s going to throw up. _Where the hell’s the trash can?!_

Closer.

Closer.

Undo that line, make it smoother. The tapping of his stylus becomes dimmer. Dimmer the closer she gets to him. With every footstep.

_Sagishi…please come back! Tell me I need to take better care of myself, lecture me on skipping meals, lecture me on overworking! I don’t care, just come back! I can’t do this!_

_I can’t do this by myself!_

He makes an attempt to raise his head and in his tear-fogged vision those glistening black boots are planted firmly into the ground in front of him. Those blood-red laces and towering heels and pointed toes. She could lift her foot and stamp him into oblivion. She could stoop down, seize him by his collar and hurl him off the bridge and he would be able to do nothing other than let himself sink. Sink and sink. The tighter he screws up his eyes the faster his tears stream. _This can’t be happening._

‘I-I really thought I was helping people!’

Something settles on one shoulder. He overflows with comfort at the touch because it had to be Sagishi. Sagishi who always put one hand on his shoulder and would somehow instantly dispel all his anxieties in a second.

_Sagishi? Is that you?!_

But Sagishi’s hands were always so soft; soft and pillowy and large and warm and _not like this hand._ This hand wasn’t like that.

_I won’t do it! I-I won’t turn around!_

The presence on his shoulder creeps up the back of his neck slowly; let’s try that line again, it’s wonky. Sweat pours down his forehead, drips onto his bare collarbone, clings in droplets to the hair falling over his face. The tapping of the stylus has muted; the humming has muted. The weight of the tablet under his fingers has dissolved into the slick cobbles beneath him. Only the sound of his own breathless gasping and the rain drumming against his back, against the water, against stone. Sounds that strike in the form of deafening white noise passing through his mind in nebulous, swelling waves. Something sharp ghosts over the nape of his neck, tenderly strokes his goose-pimpled skin beneath the curtain of lank hair. He arches his back sharply. But continues to animate.

Tap.

Undo.

He can’t stop crying. He can never stop crying. Crying and crying until there’s nothing left. Then he’ll feel totally void for some hours before his body coils up and he begins to scream and wail once more.

**‘Run, coward. For that despair is yours and yours alone.’**

The hand on his back shoots forward and a red nail swipes across his throat with a single motion. He gurgles, thrashes, stylus clattering to the floor. His blood collects in thick pools on his desk, runs over the jagged cobblestones in watery crimson ribbons. He plunges into the river.

And everything darkens.

 ------------------------------------------

\------------------------------------------

\------------------------------------------

When he wakes up he still feels like he is drowning, his fingers clenching and unclenching, his mouth open in what feels like a scream but comes out as wheezing breathless inhales. Blinking through rapidly gathering tears the steely greys and muddy browns of his surroundings swim into view. He gradually becomes aware of the pulsing ache between his shoulder blades, then the painful chills coursing over his skin as he heaves himself into an unstable sitting position with both hands trembling against the wood of the bench. Hoarse and panicked gasps echo off the walls, his breathing becoming too fast for him to keep up. His arms automatically fasten themselves across his torso as he clings to his shoulders.

It was just a dream. Not one of the worst ones, but enough to leave him shivering and clawing at his arms with his dirty, jagged nails. Enough to leave him desperately sucking in air, his sobs physically choking him and making his raw throat feel like it’s burning. His shuddering hands fly to the back of his head as his body folds in on itself and he lets out a pained and throaty scream into the darkness. It echoes in his own ears, mingles with the lingering sound of his own pathetic whimpering and moaning.

He’s so disgusting.

_You’re so disgusting._

_What a disgusting and worthless creature you are._

His hair is so greasy and feels coarse under his fingers, slick with hot sweat around his temples that glues stray strands to his skin. Everything aches and throbs and is so painful that he wants to scream over and over until somebody shakes him awake and tells him with kind eyes that this has all been a horrific nightmare.

Somebody.

_Sagishi._

_He needs Sagishi._

His stomach is churning. He rapidly scrambles to his feet and makes a lurching sprint across the room to the platform where he falls to his knees and vomits up buckets of milky acidic fluid onto the tracks. He hardly has the strength to stay upright as he sways violently to one side, the world around him whirling and lagging through his tears.

_This isn’t a dream._

The stinging taste in the back of his throat almost makes him want to throw up again. He splutters and spits onto the rails, bringing a shaking forearm over his chin and mouth which only serves to smear the liquids together. His head is consumed by a stabbing pain that has been a constant for days now. His arms and legs feel like jelly under the lead weight of his body, his skin on his arms prickling with cold while his cheeks feel desperately hot. He knows he’s sick. Really sick and getting worse. The aching limbs and the fever and the nausea come and go, are sometimes hardly noticeable but sometimes utterly unbearable, enough to make him cry out loud, to force rolling tears that burn against his skin when he scrubs at his red cheeks. He’ll sometimes be unable to do anything but curl up on his side and bury his throbbing head in his arms in an attempt to mute the pain, stuck in a blind feverish stupor for what feels like an absolute eternity. Then he’ll wake up drenched in sweat, with strands hair clinging to his hot cheeks and forehead. He’ll often throw up what he ate a few hours earlier and feel better for an indeterminate amount of time. The fact is that he’s stuck like this; going to the hospital is out of the question. Going back to the old student dorms to fetch his medication is even more out of the question. Unlike back then there is absolutely nothing he can do to take better care of himself. Makes him hate his past self for ignoring his friends’ worried advice. If he hadn’t been such an idiot he’d never have made himself ill in the first place.

He spits one more time into the gap, spewing yellow-ish saliva that dribbles down his chin, before sharply averting his gaze; this isn’t the first time he’s used the tracks as a place to run when he’s suddenly felt nauseous; he doesn’t always make it to the dark and grimy toilet a few rooms away. He exhales, scrubs once more at his mouth with his sleeve and sinks down to lie on his side. There’s a large brown rat scurrying across the other side of the room. His eyes follow it, managing after a few seconds to actually pull it into tenuous focus before it disappears behind the wall. Rats are everywhere down here. He used to be quite frightened of them when he was younger but the sight of them is rapidly becoming familiar to him.

_‘Oh, look, a rat on the tracks!’ exclaims the Imposter, pointing into the dark trench ahead of them._

_They’re going to AniWest together. He’s never been to such a big convention before, Sagishi agreed to go with him, and he’s so excited he might pass out._

_‘Huh?! What?! Where is it?! W-wait, n-no, I don’t want to look!’_

_‘…Mitarai, are you really scared of rats? What do you think they’re going to do to you?’_

_‘Nothing, I-I just don’t like them…their little black eyes creep me out, okay?’_

_‘You’re so ridiculous, you know. It’s strangely charming.’_

Charming.

That’s one thing Sagishi had been wrong about; he could never in his life be ‘ _charming.’ ‘_ Charming’ is a word reserved for people who haven’t done what he’s done. ‘Charming’ is what used to come to mind when he heard cheerful students talking and laughing together outside his window as he worked away in solitude on his trashy, pointless anime. Those students are now either dead or struggling to survive the riots and bombings, probably bereaved of loved ones, alone, scared, confused.

He’s not like them. He is nothing but the engineer of their suffering. A revolting monster.

He is _not_ 'charming'.

The tunnels are silent, as usual. Nothing but the sound of his own unsteady breathing, the buzzing in his head that won’t leave him alone. Sometimes he’ll hear water dripping onto the rails somewhere far away, reaching him in shallow echoes, but nothing more. It is often easy to forget the chaos and carnage taking place so far above him, the people being slaughtered and slaughtering others in turn. Yet Ryota often waits for the moment when the world around him will start crumbling, when dust and debris will start dropping from the ceiling and he is crushed in a mountain of dark brick. He’s decided, if he does ending up dying, that is his preferred way to go; less frightening than being sliced open by a vicious and crazed civilian, less painful than giving into his sickness or starving to death.

Thinking about it makes him shudder. He needs to eat something; it’s becoming hard to ignore the aching hunger in the pit of his stomach, and throwing up whatever he ate last is just making it worse. Plus, he needs something to take away the repulsive taste of bile, and the smell of vomit on the tracks is only serving to worsen his pounding headache. It takes all his strength to push himself into a sitting position, the black shadows of the platform spinning together, merging and crossing before his eyes. He hates how much he needs someone to look after him, how poorly he’s coping on his own. He hates how much he finds himself wishing he was being looked after despite deserving the opposite. _You don’t deserve the love of the people whose lives you’ve ruined. You don’t deserve anything._

He waits for his vision to settle, climbs sluggishly to his feet and turns a corner out of the platform. Faced with a familiar maze of dimly lit passages he makes a left; other routes lead to other lines, one of which is inaccessible due to the ceiling having collapsed, another of which seems to house the underground’s entire rat population, the third of which simply has nothing more to offer than the area he’s set himself up in. He passes the station’s single grubby bathroom and makes for the broken escalator leading to the floor above. He finds himself puffed out obscenely quickly, but then again he’s been that way for a long time; he’s familiar with the effects of sitting in a dark room without moving for weeks on end and knows he’s brought his horrendous lack of stamina upon himself. Problem is the world outside isn’t exactly kind to people like him, people who are weak, who can’t show aggression or fight for their lives. In this dog-eat-dog reality the only thing he can do is stay hidden and pray. As he gets higher up he begins to hear more; the occasional shout from outside, the faint sound of robotic chanting, even the odd gunshot. The protesters can’t be far off, then. He needs to make this quick.

He reaches the top of the staircase sweating and panting uncontrollably, rests his hands on his knees, and glances around. The ground floor is pretty smashed up unlike the platforms below, though no more so than it was the day before, which is a good sign. Means no one’s found their way in yet. He figures the building must have been bombed by rioters before he arrived because the main entrance and parts of the ceiling surrounding it have totally collapsed in on themselves, leaving no obvious point of access. He managed to infiltrate the building via the vents, having found a small square hole in the side of the wall that wound up taking him to the deserted tunnels below. He also made an effort back then to further blockade the doors and windows to stop other people from getting in. No matter what’s going on outside he is safe in here. That is unless the station gets bombed again, which could very easily cut off his food supply. He can only cross his fingers in the hope that that will never happen, that for once he’ll be graced with a modicum of good luck. Not that he deserves it, of course.

He lethargically clambers over the erect barriers at the ticket gates, stumbling clumsily when his feet hit the floor on the other side. He needs food badly; he’s so hungry that it’s a physical ache, as if his stomach is actually eating away at itself. He has the advantage that he’s relatively used to going long stretches without food, but all those other times he’s had his work to distract him from the pain, the chills, the gnawing emptiness in his abdomen. He’s been able to ignore it and face the consequences later, rarely even noticing until it was too late. It was all so simple back then, when the only reason he wasn’t eating enough was because he was so driven to perfect his project, when Sagishi would always stop things from getting too bad and he’d be fine in the end. Sagishi isn’t here anymore and food is running out fast and there’s nothing he can do about it.

The station’s sole vending machine is turned on its side along the wall from the destroyed entrance, its glass shattered and sprinkled over the floor in jagged fragments. That’s his doing; when he first discovered the machine he tried kicking and shoving it until something came out, but that took too long and made him exhausted. The effort of heaving the machine onto its side wasn’t anything to snort at either, but he’s thankful that he took the time to do so. He furrows his brow at how little is left despite his careful rationing; some bottles of still water, a few packets of chips, two more cartons of biscuits and an energy drink. He’s been strictly limiting himself to one food item and half a bottle of drink a day, and feels a plunging feeling in his gut at the sudden realisation that he will have to seriously cut down on that if he wants to keep himself alive longer than another week. He presses the fingers of one hand to his temples as his headache suddenly flares behind his eyes. He has to silence his buzzing, swirling thoughts for a second just to keep his head from exploding from the pain. He doesn’t quite understand whether this constant migraine is a symptom of his fever or down to the fact that he’s been sleeping on a bench and eating almost nothing for weeks now. It’s the same with his bouts of nausea; it’s often when he thinks about Enoshima in any detail that he feels sick, though not always. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, he doesn’t know how to stop himself from slowly wasting away, decaying into a putrid corpse. And soon there will be nothing to eat.

_You’re going to die. You’re literally going to starve to death down here._

He presses both hands to his head and clenches his jaw, the grinding of his teeth echoing sharply in his ears. Once again there are fat tears clinging to his eyelashes because _he’s so hungry and everything hurts so so much._ The fact that he hasn’t eaten is making everything hurt _more_ , probably making his stupid illness even worse. He wants to melt into the ground and stop existing. But he’s too afraid to die. He’s too afraid of not existing anymore, too afraid of how much it will hurt. He’s too afraid of his miserable life suddenly just being over after accomplishing absolutely nothing. He’s too afraid of his only mark on the world being that he developed the technology that ended it. Who knows what Enoshima is doing with his techniques. Who knows how bad things have gotten already because of him. And he categorically refuses to die until he’s done something about it.

He inhales shakily, tears spilling over his cheeks. He’s so cold but drenched in sweat. His limbs ache. He feels layers of grime and dirt cling to his skin and hair and absolutely hates it. He’s disgusting. He absolutely stinks, as does his muddy uniform. He feels like a corpse already. But he simply can’t die yet. Clenching his fists, he climbs unsteadily to his feet and drags his forearm over his eyes to mop up the tears. With a renewed determination to survive as long as humanly possible he turns away from the broken down machine and makes his way back towards the escalator, the pile of rations remaining untouched.

 ------------------------------------- 

He thinks about Sagishi a lot. And his class. Although he never met most of his schoolmates he has snapshots of their personalities, of their identities, of their eccentricities, gained through the wild and unbelievable stories Sagishi used to tell him.

_‘Mioda came in with her acoustic guitar today and literally climbed onto Nidai’s shoulders to perform a song she’d written for me...and it had a title, too; something like “We all love our chubby otaku pal with sausage fingers.”_

_‘Tsumiki fell…again, but this time down a manhole. She was fine, don’t worry.’_

Before he actually got to know Tsumiki he had a clear caricature of her clumsiness. When he finally met her he discovered that Sagishi hadn’t been exaggerating.

_‘Souda brought this robot hamster creature to school and had it sneak into Tanaka’s scarf before it tore his earing out of his ear and now Sonia won’t talk to Souda at all and Tanaka’s scarf is covered in blood. Souda was crying.’_

_‘Pekoyama and Kuzuryuu are still acting like a married couple and whenever neither of them are in the room we collectively come up with conspiracy theories. I mean, I don’t, but everyone else does. Miss Yukizome even lets them use the chalkboard.’_

_‘They’re all so damn annoying sometimes. But, honestly, being with them makes me feel so much less…void, you know?’_

His class sounds like a group of fantastic people. People that are rare in this world, who are genuinely unique, fascinating, yet who also radiate warmth and kindness, who are achingly passionate about something and are deadly proud of it. Ryota remembers how Sagishi began to change after they started attending class; it was gradual at first, but soon they just seemed so much more genuinely happy in themself than the Ultimate Imposter he met near the start of the school year. He has never been the most emotionally in tune with others, yet he was always able to sense this profound and bitter sadness in the Imposter that made him unspeakably upset, because the idea that someone as wonderful as Sagishi would ever think anything negative of themself seemed like a paradox. Sagishi was truly exceptional in a way that he’s never encountered anywhere else in his life. They were infinitely caring, dedicating their time (and often their money) to making sure he stayed healthy enough to continue with his project, something they didn’t have to do, something he never asked them to do. They had a unique way of life to say the least, but it was one they had a certain confidence in, although it obviously made them painfully depressed sometimes. They were intelligent and gentle and warm and the first friend he ever had.

And the fact that their class made them so happy made _him_ so happy in turn, because Sagishi deserved more than anyone else to be happy. He used to feel this nagging envy towards his classmates, this aching desire to be able to make Sagishi as happy as their class made them. But he knew he could never be that person. He was too…boring. Too one-dimensional. Too awkward and plain and inexplicably nervous. He repelled people. Before he was transferred to Hope’s Peak, back when he was bullied and beaten up, back when he had garbage thrown on him and death threats scratched into his desk, he used to wish he was different, wish he wasn’t such an unlikable person so his tormentors would leave him alone. At Hope’s Peak he wished he wasn’t such an unlikeable person so Sagishi would be able to derive the same happiness from spending time with him as they did from spending time with class 77. If that were the case, then perhaps he wouldn’t be such a burden on them. Perhaps he’d feel like he wasn’t wasting their time. Sagishi deserves better than that.

And they deserve better than whatever Junko Enoshima has done to them. Ryota has just about let go of the sliver of hope that she somehow wasn’t able to carry out her plan, that she didn’t manage to brainwash Sagishi and his classmates with his technology. Of course she did. The world outside is falling to pieces and it feels too convenient, too lucky, to say that the 77th class happened to make it out unscathed, especially when Enoshima was targeting them. They’re out there somewhere, an army of her clones, orchestrating total chaos, ending lives, hurting innocent people. Either that or they’ve died already.

_What if Sagishi’s dead? What if Enoshima put the class into a killing game like in the video?_

Sounds and images from the zetsubou video suddenly resurface and he bolts upright, one hand clamping to his forehead, his heart pulsating in his ears. That nauseating green-ish hue, the sinister droning music hanging in the background overlaid with Ikusaba’s sickly sweet vocals, those camera angles that twist and distort the agonised expressions of the students as they are ripped to pieces one by one. The tear tracks down their faces, their tortured screams merging together into one nightmarish howl. Fountains of blood forming deep scarlet puddles as victims drop like flies. A familiar queasiness builds in his throat. He thinks of the small girl in the yellow animal hoodie flailing her frying pan in a panic, tears streaming from her multi-coloured eyes, the way she screeches in pain as a knife is plunged into her stomach. He thinks of the boy in glasses firing blindly in front of him before the girl’s corpse smacks into him and he is taken by the neck, the light slowly leaving his eyes as the breath is choked from him, thick saliva bubbling from the corner of his mouth down his chin.

_Stop thinking about it. Stop it, block it out!_

The pink haired girl who was impaled on a pole mid-run, writhing in agony on the floor, bleeding out. The guy who killed her, sweating and sobbing and screaming incoherently. The death of the two lovers, the pretty girl’s face scrunching in horror as she’s sprayed with the blood of what he assumes is her boyfriend, the way she spews red from her lips as that spear is hammered through both of their bodies at a time.

He thinks for a second that he might throw up again. He feels it rising, his knees trembling, his foot beginning to automatically tap against the floor as he swallows hard and glues his eyes shut, making a desperate effort to push it down. He attempts frantically to layer disparate sounds and images over the blood and the screaming and the massacre raging in his head; that anime last season that had the most amazing opening, how did it go again? _Remember, remember!_ The animation and art style in that show was one of the best he’s ever seen, but all the bland and predictable romantic subplots really detracted from the characters’ emotional resonance. _Stop thinking about the video, stop thinking about the video. Stop it, stop it._ He inhales deeply and tries to relax his shoulders. _Relax, just stop thinking about it._ The urge to physically vomit has faded slightly _,_ which is a relief. There’s nothing in his stomach to come back up anyway, apart from water; another advantage of abstaining from his remaining supplies for the day. And yet, as hard as he tries to blot the video from his thoughts, it won’t leave him alone, the same scenes, noises, faces, repeating themselves over and over.

After all, he saw that video so many times. Over and over and over again. For what felt like an eternity he was tweaking it, winding it back, freeze framing on a close up of someone’s tortured expression, on images of lifeless bodies soaking in blood. He recalls his panicked and scrambled thought processes as he adjusted the picture, played with the sound levels, increased the focus on one thing, decreased it on another. Pressed the replay button over and over, pressed it again for Enoshima. He incorporated the subtlest of elements; sound bites that were barely even audible in the final product, random static images on almost 0% opacity that he overlaid with the video, shadowy signs, shapes, noises hidden in the chaos, unnoticeable unless you know what to look for. He remembers watching it with Enoshima behind him, her manicured hand on his shoulder, her perfume stinging his eyes as silent tears dripped from his chin onto the keyboard and he waited for the ground to swallow him up.

‘ _Awww_ , _baby boy…you’ve done so well! Really, I’m so impressed…’_

_The way she talks is slow, seductive. The room is airless and sticky. She takes him by the back of his chair and sharply spins him around to face her head-on. His mind fills with fizzling white noise that prickles over his skin in the form of biting chills. Her skin is so smooth, so flawless, her makeup so perfect. He’s close enough to her to see the fine, invisible hairs on her face, to feel her hot, sugary breath on his lips. She glides her nails under his chin._

_‘…But I think we can do better, don’t you? I think you’re holding out on me…and you know what happens to your precious classmates if I don’t get what I want…’_

_He can’t prevent a small whimper from escaping his lips as thoughts of his classmates taking part in the events of the video consume his mind. The thought of Sagishi and Tsumiki being impaled and stabbed and strangled, the sound of them screaming in pain, the sight of them grey and lifeless, drenched in red. This can’t be happening. I haven’t done anything. I haven’t done anything I haven’t done anything I haven’t done anything._

_This can’t be happening. THIS ISN’T REAL._

**_THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING._ **

He inhales sharply and drags a hand over one eye, tilting his head back to stare tiredly at the ceiling. The silence of the tunnels almost surprises him as he pulls himself out of his whirling hive of memories. It all still feels so incredibly real, as if Enoshima’s still there behind him, watching him, breathing on him. But she’s not there. Enoshima is far away and he is all alone down here and she can’t possibly know where to find him. It’s okay.

Yeah right.

He grimaces, because nothing’s okay; that disgusting video he made with his own two hands still exists and is being used by Enoshima to spread her own brand of nihilistic, bloody, chaotic despair. At the same time all he can do is hide away down here like a filthy rat and wait while the world above his head goes to hell. Really, he’s no different to her. He’s a villain, he’s a criminal. He’s a monster. He’s killed real people and hurt so many others. He played right into Enoshima’s hands in a way that can’t be forgiven.

No. Nothing’s okay. But he’s not prepared to die until he can somehow make it okay. It’s a prospect that feels infinitely far off, considering that he’s yet to build up the courage to climb back up to the surface, as well as the fact that he often feels too weak and ill to even stand upright, let alone become the hero that fixes this colossal mess. He doesn’t know how he intends to stop Enoshima. He doesn’t know when. Sometimes he doesn’t even know why. Often he feels like he’s simply too cowardly to die, like he needs a reason to keep living because he’s too afraid of the alternative. Maybe he just needs something to keep himself from letting his body slowly and painfully waste away down here. He doesn’t really know. He doesn’t really want to find out.

His skin is clammy under his fingers, yet also feels rough and dehydrated. He hates to imagine what he looks like, what’s become of him. How dirty he probably is, how greasy and lank his hair looks, how his face is probably flushed and sweaty and repulsive. Not that he’s ever been overly concerned about his appearance. With a long exhale he descends to lie flat on his back, his eyes fixed to the same point on the shadowy ceiling. Again, the images ahead of him blur and swim together no matter how much he tries to blink them into focus. He slowly extends one hand in front of his face which is easier to concentrate on; his nails are clogged with black dirt, his skin is translucently pale, speckled with small scratches and bruises. The delicate network of bones spanning from his fingers to his wrist suddenly appears so incredibly sharp and prominent in a way he’s never noticed before. It’s okay, though, because he’s still alive.

And he _won’t_ die until he’s done something about the chaos he’s set in motion. He still doesn’t know what, or how, but…

No matter how much he cries. No matter how pathetic he is, how much his body hurts. No matter how much he _loathes_ himself…

…he _refuses_ to die a weakling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -this basically just happened and now i want to go somewhere with it cos i have raging headcanons about what the anime neglected to cover and need to write them out. as the tags say the suffering won't be so intense later on, but i mean this is mitarai so it's still not ever gonna be overly happy lbr.  
> -the anime he's thinking of is kiznaiver btw cos i still can't get over how good the opening, animation and art style were but everything else just went rapidly downhill  
> -all the future foundation will show up bcos i am obsessed with the kind of relationships he has with other branch leaders/branch 10  
> -vents in this are like vents in mirror's edge (a very small person can crawl through them and wind up somewhere convenient with little to no effort) bcos i am the author and i say so  
> -i hope it isn't 100% obvious that i have no fucking clue how brainwashing works  
> -sorry for the angst


	2. Chapter 2

It’s the same for days. Well, maybe it is. Time doesn’t move in the same way down in his hideout as it used to on the surface, not helped by the fact that the power on the platforms has been cut, shutting off the digital clocks on the arrivals screens. There’s a large, ornate clock on the ground floor which he checks when he goes to fetch his food for the day, but venturing up those stairs for any reason other than that is simply too gruelling. He never knows exactly how long he is asleep before he bolts upright in a panic, vivid snapshots of his nightmares spinning behind his eyelids. When his fever decides to flare up his sense of time simply seems to melt through the cracks in his fingers. He’ll lie there immobile for an entirely uncertain period of time, one arm plastered to his clammy forehead as he forces his eyes closed and grits his teeth, unable to move, unable to think, unable to do anything at all other than moan like a kicked puppy. Sometimes he’ll drag himself up the broken escalator, the severity of his aching hunger making him feel certain that at least 24 hours must have passed since he last ate something, only to discover that barely 12 hours have. When that happens he’s unable to react in any way other than falling to his knees and sobbing, his own unstable, accelerated breathing filling his ears, a single question repeating in his head over and over again.

_How much longer do I have to go through this?! How much longer can I go through this?!_

The more he asks himself that question the more one answer emerges from the feverish haze in his mind

_I can’t do this._

The conflict between not being able to stand it anymore and strictly forbidding himself to die causes him to argue with himself constantly. It’s not like he can quickly and painlessly kill himself because there’s no way to actually go about doing so unless he gets very creative. He doesn’t want to face the idea of letting his body starve to death because he’s heard how excruciating that is and he’s simply too much of a coward. Besides that, he knows he’s not _allowed_ to stop existing until he’s fixed everything. Just by continuously chanting that to himself he often manages to pick himself up, dry his eyes, and keep existing for another few days until the process repeats itself. He thinks about what his parents might say if they were with him, what they used to tell him when he was going through his bullying problems at school. How his mom would bring him hot cocoa and wrap a blanket around his shoulders, stroking his hair.

‘ _Your hair’s so soft, you know? Makes me so jealous...’_

_He bites his lip and says nothing, clutching his mug firmly and looking away from his mother to hide his tears. The only sound in the room comes from ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’, which is still playing in the background._

_‘You’re such a wonderful boy, Ryota,’ she sighs. He can hear the hurt in her voice. ‘You’re so talented…and kind, and clever…’_

_He wants her to go away. Everything she’s saying is wrong, because if he was all of those things people would like him. People simply don’t like him and they never have. She doesn’t understand anything._

_‘…and strong. It’s not an easy thing to be, you know…’_

_Silence. In the background Howl is having his meltdown because he dyed his hair orange. He loves this bit._

_‘There will be a time when…when the people around you will love you and appreciate you for who you are. You’ll find other people like you…who are special…who love something as much as you do…’_

_He glances back at her briefly, smudging the wetness on his face with a damp sleeve and setting his cocoa on the floor. Her face is so kind, so warm. Her smile makes him feel so safe._

_‘Your time just…hasn’t come yet…but it will,’_

_He sniffles loudly, snot running from his nostril. He’s always been such an ugly crier._

_‘I love you…so much, Ryota. You’ll never know,’_

_He scrunches up his face as fresh tears spring in his eyelashes and drip down his cheeks and nose. His chest aches as he throws himself into her arms, clutching at the cloud-like wool of her jumper, inhaling the sweet perfume on her neck. The fragrance engulfs him, settles in his bones, makes him feel light and new._

_He’s strong._

_He’s made it through worse than this._

_He never goes down without a fight._

His dad took a different approach, his nuggets of wisdom often being that he ‘needs to take up sports’, that ‘kids pick on the weak’ and that Ryota ‘has to adapt to their hierarchy if he ever wants the bullying to stop. There’s no use crying about it, is there. It’s not fair, but life’s not fair.’ His mother used to constantly scold his father for his inability to empathise with his son, while said son would be in the next room able to hear every word they said. Strangely enough, as useless as his advice used to be, it’s often just what he needs to convince himself not to give up. He repeats to himself that there’s no use crying about what’s happened to him, that he’s not the victim here and he hasn’t got the right to act like one. If his parents were here would they hate him? Would they disown him? Would his father hit him like he did his mother that one time when he thought Ryota wasn’t peeking through the crack in the door? Would his mother refuse to hug him, refuse to let him bury himself in the sweet warmth of her cardigan as he wailed like the child he was?

The thought makes his chest hurt, makes him want to lie down, fall asleep and not wake up until the idea is permanently banished from his mind.

His mother is probably worried sick, has likely called the police by this point. He’s struck frequently by the image of her calling his phone over and over again, of her watching the news on television with one slender hand plastered over her mouth, tears rolling down her cheeks. His phone has been out of charge for weeks now, but even before everything happened something was wrong with it. So many times he tried to contact Sagishi or Tsumiki and tell them where he was, but it either refused to unlock or the number wouldn’t dial or the keybpad wouldn’t listen to him as he tried to text. Thinking back on it now he’s sure it’d been messed with somehow. Messed with by Enoshima. That, or it was broken from of all the times he forgot it was in his back pocket when he sat down to work for hours. Eventually he stopped using his phone at all, because he was distracted enough by his anime not to care about the people who might be worried about him.

Now he can’t stop thinking about his mother who has no idea where he is, who probably assumes that he’s been crushed in the bombings or injured by rioters, because why else wouldn’t he pick up his damn phone!? She has no idea what he’s done, that all of this is entirely his fault, that people are dying and all he can do is sit down here like a disgusting rat. He pictures her sobbing into her hands, crying herself to sleep, whispering down the phone to his father that the police still haven’t found him. His parents haven’t spoken properly since their divorce all those years ago. He doesn’t want to be the reason his mother forces herself to speak to that man. Not after what he did to her.

Or maybe the chaos has spread beyond this city. Maybe the house he shares with his mother has been decimated. Maybe she was inside when it happened. They live a whole three hours away from the academy, but he doesn’t know how bad things above his head have gotten. Maybe his mother is long dead, buried in the ground. All because of him.

Thinking about what could be happening back home is too much for him to bear, a kind of pain that makes him want to scream into the darkness with all his might and never stop, a kind of pain that scrapes its nails across his chest incessantly, that feels like it could physically kill him. He’s too weak to deal with pain like that. He’s too weak for a lot recently. Climbing the stairs to the vending machine is becoming harder and harder, taking longer and longer. The exertion makes his heartbeat dim in his ears, the images in front of him liquefy and blur together as he’s forced to stop and sit for a few minutes with his head in his hands. He tends to panic when that happens, because it feels like he is genuinely about to die. Some days he can’t bring himself to climb those stairs, which makes it worse when the next day comes and he’s too hungry not to eat something. He’s thought about bringing the entire contents of the machine downstairs with him, but the fact is that the escalator is acting as a barrier, helping him ration what he has left as much as he can. The more he saves what he has left, the better. The more he saves what he has left the more time he has to figure out what the hell he’s going to do.

And his time is short as it is.

\---------------------------------------

He’s lying on his side, head resting on his arm, one hand dangling above his ear while the other slowly pops tiny biscuits into his mouth. Whenever he swallows the pain in his scratchy throat flares up, seems to get worse and worse. It almost makes him not want the rest of the cookies, except they’re his favourite kind; the small animal cookies with cream in the middle. They’ve always been his favourite, yet he remembers how Sagishi used to absolutely hate them, scolding him incessantly because they weren’t nutritious.

That used to annoy him so much, but now he misses it painfully. He feels like he would do anything in the world to hear that worrisome, maternal voice one more time, to feel that warm, plush hand against his shoulder. _God_ , he misses it.

The sound of himself lethargically crunching on the snacks blocks out the dripping of water on the tracks. The station somehow feels colder than usual, with biting chills creeping up and down his skin, making his body automatically coil up as tightly as possible. Over the last few days the tunnels have seemed icier than ever, and he seems to be becoming less and less adept at fighting it off. Even when he’s suffering from one of his bouts of burning, clammy fever he feels the chills cutting at his arms and legs, prickling over his shoulders and the nape of his neck, mingling painfully with the heat and the sweat running over his body. It’s too much to take. It’s utter _torture._ Luckily his fever’s down right now, but his head feels like it’s filled with thick, hot soup that sloshes and spills from his ears whenever he makes a move. He doesn’t mind the sensation all that much, though, because it means he is unable to think too hard about anything. He can’t think about his parents or Enoshima or Sagishi and Tsumiki. He can’t think about the riots or the bombings. He can’t think about finding a clever or reasonable solution to this mess, because following his own train of thought at the moment is akin to wading through treacle or attempting to collect sand with a sieve. The opaque fog clouding his mind means he’s not only too dazed to think about what to do, but too dazed to worry about not thinking about it.

He inhales sharply before a peppering of coughs explodes from his cracked throat, his whole body quaking as he unsteadily props himself onto one skeletal hand and repeatedly hacks into his elbow, tears springing in his eyes. This continues for several painful seconds, each cough more grating and raw in his throat than the last. He quickly becomes wheezing and breathless, the darkness in front of his eyes dimming into a muddy haze dotted with blue and purple spots. The cough is quite recent; he noticed it a few days ago as tickles in the back of his throat, and now, like his headache, it’s becoming more and more of a constant. which is unbearable because it simply hurts too much to cough at this point. The convulsions of his body accentuate the aching and the cold, send his gangling limbs knocking against solid concrete with an impact that feels like it could shatter him into a million pieces. There’s always a good deal of phlegm involved, which he often just swallows down because he doesn’t want to deal with it all over his hands; his hands are grubby enough without being sticky and slimy with mucus. He takes a while to catch his breath, wrapping bony arms around his torso, attempting to breath in and out, in and out, to create a rhythm with his breathing that he is able to follow. Silence fills the air once more, punctuated by the familiar dripping of water somewhere in the distance.

God…

_You’re such a mess…_

He grips at the loose blazer material around his arms and sighs audibly, a trace of his own voice ghosting into the air around him. He hasn’t heard his own voice in a while; the voice he used to talk to his two friends with, the voice he used to exist in reality with. It feels strange to hear it again, because he finds himself unable to tether the person he was before to the creature he has become. When he holds an unsteady hand in front of his eyes, he sees no trace of Ryota Mitarai. He can just see…nothing. A void. A black hole housed by a foul, decaying body. He can’t see the Ultimate Animator, he can’t see the son of his parents, he can’t see the disguise Sagishi cloaked themself in all the time.

There’s just…

Nothing. Not anymore.

_Who are you kidding?_

_You’ve always been worthless, you know_

Ryota squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head sharply in an attempt to scrub the thoughts from his mind. _Shut up, shut **up**. _ Running a hand over his aching forehead, he glances to the side and reaches for his water. He’s cut down recently to less than a quarter of a bottle per day, because there’s still a reasonable amount to drink and he doesn’t want that to change any time soon. Running out of water is a bigger deal than running out of food, after all. He started his current bottle yesterday and there is something oddly heartening in the fact that it’s still almost full. It makes him feel like he has time, that he’s okay for the moment.

_Don’t be fucking stupid._

_Your time ran out a long time ago._

_Your time ran out the moment you met her._

_You may as well be dead already._

His throat tightens, the pain in his head spikes. **_Shut up shut up shut up_**. As if purely to distract himself he clenches his fist around the water bottle and hastily brings it to his parched lips. Slow, smooth sips rapidly turn into ungraceful gulps.

It’s utterly **blissful**.

His whole body feels momentarily weightless as the icy liquid slides down his throat. The grating pain of swallowing doesn’t stop him from wanting to down the entire bottle at once before refilling it and doing it all over again, yet all the while his self-imposed consumption limit hangs like a noose around his neck. He can’t help but keep one eye on the draining contents of the bottle, the level that is getting lower and lower as he laps up the frosty liquid. Stop, that’s enough now.

_Do you want to die? ‘Cause you’re heading that way._

He sighs inwardly and, with a heavy heart, takes a final swig, savouring every second of water spilling over his tongue and flowing in cool rivulets down his sore gullet. It’s so **good.**  So good and he wants **more.**

But he can’t. He can’t have more. He inhales deeply, shoulders sagging as he stares into the somewhat emptier plastic bottle, turning it over in his hand. Sloshing sounds fill the air, echo in uncertain rounds off the walls.

He’s still desperately thirsty. Painfully thirsty. It’s just making him want to sleep until he can wake up no longer feeling thirsty anymore, except if he’s learnt anything down here it’s that most things can’t just be slept off. And more often than not his naps, however long or short, are splattered with black, gory nightmares, with images that linger in the back of his mind for hours, even days after. He’s too exhausted, too weak, to put up with that any more than he has to. Setting his bottle down next to him he reaches for the open carton of cookies when he stops.

…

He hears something.

…

Blood pulsating in his ears, eyes stinging, sheer terror rapidly settling into every nerve of his body.

…

He hears something.

…

He hears **people**.

…

**He hears people talking.**

His blood freezes, hands flying to his mouth to stifle the panicked gasps suddenly clawing their way from behind his tongue. For a moment he can’t see anything. Nothing but an engulfing infinity of blackness. He can’t connect himself to his limbs, can’t feel the silent tears suddenly spilling over his cheeks and hands. He can’t hear himself breath. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t breathe.

_Oh god._

_Oh god oh god oh god._

_Oh god oh g-god. Why’s it still happening, why is this happening?!_

With every nanosecond the voices seem to get louder, seem to multiply and layer and reverberate in his skull. They’re masculine, boisterous. He can’t make out what they’re saying, just that they’re getting closer and closer to him.

_Why are there people down here?! There’s no way to get in, h-how are people down here?! How the hell did they get in?!_

He doesn’t know anything except that he needs to hide, that these voices probably belong to rioters. Rioters that are here to blow the place up or kill him or torture him or break his bones one by one. Or maybe these are Reserve Course students. Maybe they’re with **her.** Maybe she’s found him and she’s sent subordinates to fetch him. Maybe they’re going to drag him away kicking and screaming. **Drag him away back to her.** His racing mind flashes back to the wall of faceless Reserve Course students towering over him on every side. The rain pounding against puddles forming in the cobbles, running over his blazer that is already too saturated with water to absorb any more. He remembers looking up at them helplessly, turning his head just to be met with hundreds more students glaring down at him with dull, vacant eyes, as if he were nothing but a piece of meat. His fingers twitch at his side and he feels like he’s going to pass out, his vision turning spotty.

_This can’t…_

‘Way to leave a girl high and dry, pal!’

He jerks his head behind him.

**_This can’t be happening!!_ **

Emerging from the sea of back suits is Enoshima and he screams. He screams and thrashes and cries and screams again. The world around him barely has any time to dissolve back into the murky browns and greys of the underground before he’s on his feet stumbling forward, too weak to keep himself fully upright but too petrified not _to get the hell away from here._ Every ache in every limb of his body seems to groan in unison, his skin is on fire, the bones in his legs feel like they could snap and send him plummeting to the concrete. Images spin and blur in front of him as he glances toward the entrance to the platform. They’re coming. Oh god, they’re coming, people are coming. The voices are rapidly getting closer. They’re accompanied by echoing footsteps now. Running footsteps. They must have heard him screaming.

‘Hello? Is someone there?!’

Ryota’s eyes shoot wide open, his unsteady and blurry vision quickly settling on the area of wall to the left of him. Without thinking he dashes jerkily for his exit, how he found his way into his shelter in the first place.

‘Hello?! We’re not going to hurt you!’

He’s already clambering into the vent when the voices enter the platform, shouting after him, ringing in his ears as he begins crawling as fast as his tired, feverish body will allow. Cries of ‘It’s okay!’ and ‘Come back!’ vibrate in the sticky, humid darkness around him, biting at his skin, striking in his ears like cracking gunshots. He can’t process the fact that these strangers do not sound at all malicious, that they’re promising not to hurt him. He can’t process anything besides the frantic need to get away from them as quickly as possible, the fact that if these people are about to blow the building to smithereens _he’ll go down with it._ The fact that they probably _do_ want to hurt him, because really what are the odds of them not wanting to? The voices are right behind him, but getting more and more distant the longer he’s moving forward. With any luck the owners will have been be too big to follow him. Most people would be too big to squeeze through the hole in the wall. Not him. He’s never in his life been more grateful for being the bony runt that he is. Not even when he managed to scramble into the vents all those weeks ago.

_‘I’m telling you, he wouldn’t have this problem if he just joined one of the sports teams.’_

_‘He doesn’t **want** to join one of those teams, Hiroki! You know this, we tried putting him on the softball team and he just got worse! I am not prepared to risk him becoming even more depressed, and I am **not** allowing you to force him into something he hates!’_

_‘Well, you tell me I don’t take enough of an interest in his life, what the hell do you want from me here?! The other boys pick on him because of the way he looks! Damn it, he looks like a little girl! You think when I was a kid we didn’t all love to gang up on the wimpy boy?’_

_‘…I cannot **believe** you! I cannot believe you are taking the side of the bullies who are tormenting our son!’_

_‘Oh, come on Ayumi! The boy’s gotta learn that kids prey on the weak! I cannot believe **you** think our son is healthy the way he is! He barely goes outside given half the chance, never does any damn exercise, eats like a bird. Of course the other children at school are gonna make his life hell!’_

_‘I don’t think he’s healthy the way he is, goddamnit! You of all people **know** how worried about him I get! But if you really think forcing him into sports is going to help then you don’t know your own son!’_

_‘The fact is it’s **your** responsibility to stop this from happening and you’re refusing to!’_

_‘… **My** responsibility?! He’s **our** son, **your** son as much as mine! How **dare** you fucking blame me as if the way he’s turned out is all my fault?!’_

_‘The fact that you won’t let me put him on a team just proves that the way he is **is** your fault. You’re too goddamn lenient with him, and the fact that he’s taken to shutting himself in his room with those… **stupid** anime shows 24/7 is down to **you.’**_

When his parents fought about him, he could only watch. Watch and listen. He didn’t understand what was wrong with him, why he wasn’t healthy or normal, why his parents worried so much about him and shouted about him. He didn’t understand it, but allowing it to simply pass over his head was never as simple as he told himself it would be. When his mother’s voice cracked and broke from tears, when she said things like ‘I just don’t know what to do anymore!’ and ‘We need to get help for him!’. When they wondered what they possibly did wrong, blaming each other for how he ‘turned out’. Even when they thought he couldn’t hear them, he always could. Even when they made an effort to argue about him quietly, it descended into aggressive shouting that echoed throughout the house. Anime sometimes allowed him to block it all out, sometimes didn’t. The more he watched it the more his parents started arguing about him, about the fact that he had become hikikomori. But he wasn’t hikikomori, and there was nothing wrong with him. He was just doing what he loved, what made his heart ache with adoration in his chest, what made him laugh and grin even with no one around to see it. He never saw what was so wrong with that, but everyone else did.

And, as it turns out, everyone else was right.

Sweat pours over his skin, dripping from his hair and chin onto the warm, metallic surface beneath him. It’s swelteringly hot. Blisteringly hot. He’s not certain whether it’s entirely down to the vents themselves, or whether his ill, weak body is complaining from the sudden exertion. But it’s so hot that he feels like the surface beneath him is singing the skin off his palms as he crawls. He still hasn’t slowed down, his frenzied mind roaring in his ear to keep going, to move as fast as he can because he _just needs to get out of here now! Right now! Move it, you’re going to die! Those men are chasing you, they’re right behind you, getting closer and closer, you’re going to die here!_ The deafening clunking of his scrawny limbs smashing against the sides of the vent rumbles between his ears, behind his eyes, surrounding him as a wall of reverberating din. Then there’s the sound of his heaving breaths becoming shorter and shorter, flaked with sticky mucus in his throat that makes him wheeze and splutter like a broken machine. Somewhere beneath that is his racing heartbeat, every feeble thump further fogging his mind with buzzing white noise that stings in his tear ducts and trickles down his cheeks as panicked tears.

_Tch, tch…_

_Look at you…_

_Running away again._

_You really are the worst, you know that?_

_A rancid coward like you pretending to be the victim in all this…_

_God, I hate **everything** about you. You…_

_You **disgust** me._

He clenches his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut, a blunt pain shooting through his chest. The sweat soaking his hand causes it to slip on the metal beneath him, sending his whole body tumbling forward. Shockwaves shudder in his bones as his ribs smack against the hard surface and he is left lying feebly on his stomach, snivelling uncontrollably.

No.

_Get up._

_Goddamnit, you piece of trash, get up!_

He pushes against the bottom of the vent with a strength he didn’t know he still had. For a second he thinks he’s about to be sick, the burning heat of the tiny space totally overwhelming him, his body refusing to take the exertion anymore.

_You disgusting **freak**! Get **UP**!_

He can still hear faint echoes of the men on the platform calling after him, the sound vibrating in the metal beneath him, travelling through his fingers and up his arms as he strains his body into a tenuous upright position once more. His arms tremble beneath the weight, a series of ear-splitting coughs tearing its way from his throat, hurling phlegm onto his tongue, which he shakily swallows down. Inhaling unevenly, he lifts one hand to mop at his forehead.

He can do this.

_I can do this._

He can do this and he’s going to do this.

He’s going to _survive._ Survive and fix _everything_.

He hesitantly sets a hand in front of him and breaks into a much slower crawl, moving forward as fast as his body will physically allow. He thinks back on when he first infiltrated the station through the vents, how long it took that time, how much longer he’d have to do this for. He knows there’s a limit on how much more he can take, on how much time before he simply falls down and can’t get back up again. He just doesn’t know when this limit will strike him, just that he needs to get out before it has the chance.

The narrow passage seems to be sloping up slightly, just for a few paces, before it evens out again. Either that or he’s imagining it, his exhausted mind merely creating the illusion of an incline. Soon, however, he becomes relatively certain that he’s climbing, that the vent is creeping upwards, albeit gently. That’s a positive sign; means he’s getting gradually closer to the surface, closer to escape, closer to surviving. The climb doesn’t take long to leave him even more desperately breathless than before, and, although the tunnel evens out every few minutes, he’s too distracted to notice it. As he knows in the back of his mind, it’s not this slight incline that’s going to be a problem. He remembers from all those weeks ago what aspect of scrambling through these vents could be a problem for him, and he’s not wholly sure how he’s going to deal with it in his weakened state.

He stops. As if on cue.

He’s reached a dead end, or at least what looks like it. But he knows better. The fact that he’s suddenly able to stand upright again confirms his suspicions. The passage is elevated by a few metres, creating a wall in his way that’s just taller than he is. He briefly curses his pathetic height; without doubt, regular teens his age would have no problem hoisting themselves up onto the ledge. In the end, his minute size has turned out to be a blessing as well as a curse. He takes a second to steady himself on his feet and properly catch his breath, blinking his eyes to force his vision to settle somewhat, before clamping his hands to the edge of the platform in front of him and heaving his body upwards with what feels like non-existent strength in his arms.

_‘He’s terrible at sports, Hiroki. Always has been, and you know that full well.’_

_It’s true. He has the stamina of a teaspoon and the athleticism of a donkey, he can’t sprint to save his life, and is totally void of common sense and coordination in a team setting. His teachers have said that he shows glimmers of natural athletic potential, that if he just did more exercise he could be pretty quick and agile, sporty like other kids. Ryota, however, doesn’t know how they can see any kind of potential in him whatsoever. He has long accepted the fact that such words were likely spoken simply to encourage him, to ‘break him out of his shell’. The fact of the matter is he not only cannot do sports, but he absolutely despises them, and he knows that nothing will change that._

_However, he can do one thing. There is a singular activity in gym class that he’s actually pretty good at, that the teacher has specifically lauded him for due to his being ‘one of the best in the class’._

_Climbing the rope._

_He can’t do sports, but he can climb the rope, and he can do it pretty well._ _He can just about effortlessly clamber his way to the top while many of his classmates can’t even get halfway up, and nobody understands why._

_‘See! His teachers were right, he is naturally athletic!’_

_His mother bends down, squeezes his cheeks and beams at him. ‘My little bumble bee, that’s fantastic! See? You can do gym class after all!’_

_He nods passively, giving a half smile. In his head, he knows that he is still dismally hopeless at sports and that no amount of rope-climbing will ever change that. But he likes that his mother is happy with him. Proud of him._

_‘You know why this is?’ His dad ruffles his hair and grins. ‘It’s ‘cause you’ve worked up so much upper-body strength from doing those drawings day-in day-out!’_

_His parents laugh. That’s nice, that they’re laughing together. It’s even sweeter that he, for once, is the source of their laughter. It’s something that seems to be happening increasingly rarely and he doesn’t know how to fix it._

_He laughs alongside them._

This is, unfortunately, nothing like rope-climbing, and, even if there was a rope before him, he doubts he’d simply be able to scurry up like he could as a child. He knows he’s even less physically fit than he was back then, if that’s even possible. His fingers tremble desperately as he attempts to hoist himself upwards, all the aches and pains in his entire body seeming to bite into him at once as he strains against the raised platform. The fact that his palms are slick with sweat doesn’t help, as with every second it feels like he’s about to lose his grip and crash to the floor. Managing somehow to gain some height, he kicks his feet out into the air behind him; he’s just tall enough and the vent is just narrow enough that he is able to press his feet against the back wall and propel his body onto the raised ledge, into the shadowy tunnel ahead of him. Shuffling forward on his stomach, Ryota momentarily feels his consciousness fading. He registers the vents’ poisonous and putrid stink hanging in his nostrils, a feathery strand of spider’s web tickling one cheek, the rises and falls of his own body as he heaves in and out. In and out.

_Almost there…_

_Almost…there…_

Neon spots swimming in the infinite darkness before him, he clenches his teeth, props his shaking body onto his hands and knees once more.

_You can do this…_

_You’re almost there._

_If those men are going to blow up the station…_

_You’re likely almost out of time._

The urgency to keep going smacks him across the face and he’s moving forward even before he makes a conscious decision to do so. Once again the passage seems to be sloping up, more noticeably this time. It’s hard to tell whether his own sight is fading, given the engulfing blackness bordering his field of vision that could just be attributed to the dim vents themselves. Wait. There’s a noise behind him. Something echoing, a pitter-pattering sound, getting closer and closer. He shrieks loudly when something warm and fuzzy scurries over one hand, shooting off ahead of him into the blackness. A rat. A single tear runs over his nose, drips onto his tense, curling fingers. He thought he’d become used to rats by now. Apparently not. Taking a deep breath, he keeps moving. Keeps moving. It’s the only thing he knows how to do right now.

_Keep moving._

_Put one hand in front of the other. Move one knee in front of the other. Repeat. Repeat._

_One hand in front of the other. One knee. It’s so simple, keep moving._

Another web plasters itself against his face. An arm automatically jerks upwards to peel the white threads from his cheeks when a large black spider tumbles from his knotted hair and scuttles around his body frantically. He bites his lip and presses forward, gaining some speed, shaking his head in an attempt to dislodge any other stray spiders from his hair. Although there’s not much use, he considers; at this point, after weeks of not being able to wash, his hair is filthy enough to house every spider in the underground. Not only that, but he’s beyond panicking about spiders. At least he’s learned something from being stuck down here. Even if his fear of rats is still alive and well, at least he’s able to touch a spider without spiralling into a jumpy frenzy.

He turns. Goes straight for a bit. Turns again. The tunnel slopes up some more before he’s met with another wall.

_Are you kidding!?_

He erupts in another bout of phlegmy coughing as he raises his body to stand once more, his hands flying up to massage his throat. His eyes sting and burn and water, he’s utterly breathless, he feels physically sick. But he’s almost there. He’s almost there, he can _do_ this. He’s almost out of this stuffy, sweaty, hellish tunnel. He’s almost outside.

_Outside._

_…Can you really face the world outside?_

_The reason you’ve been down here all this time…_

_…is because you couldn’t cope with being outside after what you did._

_Right?_

He’s still, fists clenched. Sweat drips from his hair. His heart pounds, passes in uncertain waves between his ears.

_B-but I have no choice…_

_I have to get out of here! I can’t stay here! I have to get out of here **now**!_

Blindly sucking in a heaving breath, he once again latches onto the ledge above him with trembling hands, heaving his body of the floor and flailing his legs behind him in the same way as before, just managing to springboard himself onto the dark path before him. Nothing is certain in his mind. Any remnant of clear thought has been fuzzed and clouded over by a murky, muddy fog. Every decision, every consideration, every anxiety, every shred of hope has become blurred into one shadowy, nebulous void. Every image, save one. Save that blank, poisonous grin, those bloody dagger-like nails, those icy, azure eyes and cotton candy twin-tails. The smooth, milky skin and glossy lips of Junko Enoshima. He can’t picture a version of himself that is able to remove Enoshima from his mind. He can’t picture a version of himself that is separated from her toxic, dripping despair. Did she change him? Is he in despair himself, has he been in despair this whole time?

He just doesn’t know anymore. He doesn’t know who he is anymore.

Not allowing himself to rest for more than a few wheezing seconds, he presses on into the darkness. A darkness that is slightly less inky and impenetrable than it has seemed before. He squints, noticing that the vent swerves to the right in a few metres, that there’s a dim, grey light hitting the back wall ahead of him.

The exit.

That has to be the exit!

His heart blooms and bleeds behind his ribs, a desperate smile pulling at his trembling lips, fresh tears filling his eyes once more. The relief comes out audibly as a sort of whine, an unrestrained exhale that carries his voice into the air with it. The sticky humidity around him suddenly feels infinitely more suffocating, more scalding against his skin as he subconsciously accelerates towards the turning, towards the light. He needs to get out. He’s almost out! The need to breathe clean, fresh air again weighs on his back like hot iron, and beneath the tinny racket of his hands and knees smacking against the walls around him he hears faint outside-noises that become more and more prominent. Tears stream from his eyes as he crawls round the bend and is struck by a rectangular shaft of brightness. There’s no longer any breath in him. He throws his hands and knees forward, tumbles through the passage, gasps with uninhibited ecstasy as the light gets closer and closer. Closer and closer. Closer and closer. The pungent smell of the vents becomes more and more diluted, he can feel whispers of cool, damp air stroking his hands and cheeks. His heart is about to burst, his limbs about to snap. He’s about to drop to the floor and never move again ** _. Just a bit more_**. Tears spill from his chin to his fingers. He hurls his body into the light.

And everything numbs.

Silence. White noise.

…

He registers water.

Rain. Rain is falling around him. His uniform is soaked through. The ground around him is freezing and damp. But he can’t move. Even if he wanted to, he can’t move.

He slowly raises his head to the sky, unable to process the sights or sounds before him. Unable to process anything at all. Just that there’s rain falling from the sky. So much rain. Tapping and pattering against the grime on his skin, the dirt saturated into his hair. Drenching him. Cleansing him. Something faint in his chest is screaming at him to hide, to crawl back into the hole in the wall and never come out. Because rain can only remind him of Chisa Yukizome as she wipes away his tears and hands him her umbrella, of grey skies and cobbles and the army of grey Reserve Course students, of plunging into the freezing, murky abyss of water and sinking, sinking. But the rain also feels glorious and blissful and the only thing that’s given him hope in what feels like a dark, asphyxiating eternity.

He can’t move.

Everything fades.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- that took 500 years phew i am sorry  
> \- this chapter is obscenely long and i am also sorry for that...it was not meant to be  
> \- in regards to him being a pro at climbing the rope...take a guess at which ridiculous and unlikely plot-point from mirai-hen episode 12 i am referencing  
> \- also regarding the likelihood of ryo actually managing to escape through the vents...lets just say i'm invoking artistic license  
> \- chapter 3 will likely take just as long to come out :/ unless it turns out to be a short one which it may well do who knows the level of planning that's gone into this fic as a whole is...not great  
> \- plus i have shitty uni work to do smh


End file.
